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Brief Synopsis

The real-life story of a doctor who was hanged in London in 1910 for poisoning his wife.

In 1910 Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen, a London physician, is charged with the murder of his wife, Belle; and his beautiful typist and mistress, Ethel Le Neve, is arrested as an accessory to the crime. Both defendants plead not guilty. As the crown prosecutor, R. D. Muir, opens his case, Crippen recalls the ordeal of his marital life with Belle, an ex-music hall singer. Drunken, disreputable, and openly unfaithful, Belle tyrannized and humiliated him. With Ethel, on the other hand, Crippen shared an idyllic relationship. Belle blackmailed him into maintaining sexual relations with her after she learned of his affair with Ethel. He intended to quiet her repugnant demands by slipping her a tranquilizer but accidentally administered a fatal overdose. In his panic, he dismembered her body and buried it in the cellar, asserting that she was visiting a relative in the United States and later reporting that she had died. Ethel moved into the house, but suspicious neighbors noticed that she was wearing Belle's jewelry. Though police seemed to believe his explanation, Crippen persuaded Ethel to disguise herself as a boy, and together they fled on a steamer to Canada. Prompted by his disappearance, the police investigated further and discovered Belle's body in the cellar. On a stopover, the steamer captain saw newspaper photographs of Crippen. Later he recognized Crippen as the suspect and wired Scotland Yard. At the outcome of the trial, Ethel is acquitted but Crippen is convicted and sentenced to death. As he awaits the gallows, he continues to protest his innocence, expressing concern for Ethel and insisting that he had not meant to murder his wife but only to quiet her.